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Thursday, February 11, 2010

The Styrofoam Jesus

According to Lutheran epologist Edward Reiss, “When the Reformed argue against the Real Presence they often say that since Jesus' body is a material body, just like ours, he cannot be bodily present in the bread and nor can his blood be present in the wine. Jesus' body and blood, being localized in space and time, cannot be in more than one place at a time as a body…This for Calvin the objective, local presence of Jesus' body and blood is an empirical question more or less answered by the properties of a human body. It is my purpose to show that this is not a very strong objection at all. All I have to do is show from Scripture that Jesus' body is not like ours in every respect…There are some miracles which seem to defy what a body can do, but which never the less Jesus Christ did. (All Bible citations ESV). First let us consider Jesus walking on water (John 6:16-20)… Human bodies sink when we try and walk on water without special equipment. This is because human bodies are subject to the physical laws of gravity as well as other physical laws--such as we cannot be in two places at one time. Human bodies have mass and three dimensions. If the displacement of the mass of water is less than the mass of the human body, the human body begins to sink. This behavior is called buoyancy.”

I think Ed is definitely onto something here. When Jesus walked on water, that wasn’t made possible because Jesus miraculously suspended the way in which deep water and human bodies naturally interact. No, it was actually cuz Jesus had a different kind of body than you and me. You see, Jesus had a Styrofoam body. So his body had the natural property of buoyancy. A such, there was nothing miraculous about his walking on water. It was a natural event, given the natural properties of his unique corporeal composition.

“Second, let us consider the transfiguration (Luke 9:28-36)… Human bodies do not change their faces and cause their clothes to become ‘dazzling white.’”

Yes, Jesus could glow in the dark because his body was made of fluorescent material.

“However, seems to me that the physical quality of Jesus’ body is quite variable--especially if we are not limited by our experiences of what exactly human nature is, and what a human body can do.”

That’s right! Jesus had several different bodies-types which he hung in his closet. Depending on which kind of body he needed, he could reach into the closet and put on a different kind of body.

For example, when the Devil flew Jesus to the pinnacle of the temple, Jesus donned his winged-body.

And it wasn’t just Jesus. Moses was luminous because Moses also had a body made of fluorescent material. Daniel’s friends could survive in the furnace cuz they had asbestos bodies. And Jonah could survive in the body of the “whale” cuz he had gills and rubber skin (to protect him from the stomach acid). Not to mention Lazarus. He returned from the dead because his body could spontaneously regenerate.

“All I have to do is show from Scripture that Jesus' body is not like ours in every respect. And Lutherans believe this is so because of the personal union, which is to say for instance that shaking Jesus' hand is the same thing as shaking God's hand. But that is a post for another day…However, is it true that when God assumed human flesh that the resulting God-Man has the same properties we do?”

That’s very insightful. Come to think of it, that also explains some other apparent miracles in Scripture. Take the floating axhead. It was able to float due to a hypostatic union between God and the axehead. This was no ordinary axhead. Rather, this was nothing less than the God-Axhead. Likewise, the burning bush was really the God-Bush.

And when the Holy Spirit descended in the “form of a dove,” that’s because he really transmogrified into a dove–just like Odo.

“In the two John passages [Jn 19:26-29; 20:19-23] Jesus appears to pass through locked doors.”

Yes, in this case Jesus vaporized into a puff of smoke and passed through the keyhole in a wisp of smoke. Or maybe he had a body like the Sandman in Spiderman. If your body has the right natural properties, you can do just about anything.

Lutherans not only worship the Pillsbury Doughboy, but they also worship Casper the Ghost!

“In the second case, one must re-interpret ‘the doors were locked’ to mean ‘the doors were unlocked’, based solely upon the propositions of what properties a human body must have.”

Of course, John doesn’t say that Jesus “passed through the doors.”

Moreover, why assume that Jesus had to pass through the wooden doors to enter the room? If it was a miracle, then there is no one particular way in which a miracle has to occur.

That’s the point. If something is a naturally occurring event, then it can only occur in a certain way–consistent with the “laws of nature.”

If, however, something is a miracle, then it’s occurrence needn’t be facilitated by any particular process or medium. As a miracle, there’s more than one possible pathway to yield the desired effect since, in fact, it requires no pathway to get there. So if Christ’s appearance in the upper room is a miracle, then there was no particular method he had to employ (e.g. passing through solid doors).

Indeed, miracles are frequently defined as immediate effects. There is no causal chain leading up to the miracle.

Mind you, that definition is overstated. For some miracles may employ natural forces. But that is not a precondition of a miracle.

“In both cases, an extraneous interpolation of philosophical commitments into the text to make them fit those commitments.”

Yes. In Lutheran hermeneutics, the God-Bush, the Styrofoam Jesus, and the asbestos Abednego derive from the plain sense of Scripture rather than an extraneous interpolation of philosophical commitments into the text to make them fit those commitments.

12 comments:

Good rebuttal Steve, but can you also answer to the Lutheran/RC objection that the idea of Christ being present somewhere (like believer's heart) in His divine nature but NOT in His human nature smacks of Nestorianism - the separation of His two natures?

Of course, "separation" is literally a spatial relation–although we can also extend it to a temporal relation. Since God is not a spatial (or temporal, or spatiotemporal) being, the hypostatic union doesn't involve a physical union from God's side of the ledger.

To say that Jesus is "present somewhere" in the "heart" of a believer is a metaphor. What this literally means is that God/Jesus causes sanctified affections in the mind of a believer.

And so, could the post-Resurrection apparitions have been a case of not Jesus "walking through walls" but rather with His divine power making the walls momentarily MAKE WAY for Him, like Moses did with Red Sea?

Viisaus, here is something Steve wrote on the subject a while back in a blog post titled Risen Indeed!.

[Quote]iii) As to the mode of his postmortem existence, unfortunately a certain school of apologetics has obscured the physicality of the Resurrection by inferring from Jn 20:19 (cf. v26) that Jesus could materialize and dematerialize at will.

But there are several problems with this inference:

a) As a matter of sound theological method, it takes the wrong point of departure. The very purpose of this pericope is to accentuate the physicality of the Resurrection. That’s where we should begin. Any interpretation of v19 should take v20 (cf. V27) as its frame of reference, not vice versa.

The point is to interpret v19 in light of v20, not reinterpret v20 in light of v 19.

This is reinforced by chapter 21, which, once again, reaffirms the physicality of the Resurrection.

b) V19 doesn’t state that Jesus passed through a solid door. That’s not what is says, and that’s not what it implies.

Indeed, the point is just the opposite: that Jesus could come and go at will without having to come through the front door.

What we have here is a local mode of existence allied to a discontinuous mode of translocation.

This is no doubt miraculous, but we expect a miraculist to do the miraculous.

Even before the Resurrection, see how he could do a disappearing act (Lk 4:30; Jn 7:30, 44; 8:20,59; 10:39; 12:36).

The “elusive Christ” is one of the subthemes of the Forth Gospel. There’s something preternatural about his ability to evade his enemies time and again, to hide in plain sight, even when he’s in their midst.[End Quote]

"And so, could the post-Resurrection apparitions have been a case of not Jesus 'walking through walls' but rather with His divine power making the walls momentarily MAKE WAY for Him, like Moses did with Red Sea?"

That's one possibility. Once we move from "natural laws" to miracles, all bets are off in terms of "how" it happened.

Steve, having demonstrated clearly that the principle of miracle can be used to ignore the problem of Jesus defying the normal laws humans are subject to, has now freed himself up to withdraw his objections to the miracle of the real presence and embrace orthodox teaching in this matter. Thank's Steve, and which new denomination will your new found faith find you joining now?

Steve, having demonstrated clearly that the principle of miracle can be used to ignore the problem of Jesus defying the normal laws humans are subject to, has now freed himself up to withdraw his objections to the miracle of the real presence and embrace orthodox teaching in this matter. Thank's Steve, and which new denomination will your new found faith find you joining now?

Just because something is possible doesn't necessarily mean God has actualized it. Otherwise, Foose might be a logical person with a fair knowledge of what the Bible teaches.

"Steve, having demonstrated clearly that the principle of miracle can be used to ignore the problem of Jesus defying the normal laws humans are subject to..."

That's a willful misrepresentation of what I actually wrote. You must have a pretty weak position if you must resort to these malicious distortions.

What I demonstrated (among other things), is that Jesus is not the only person in Scripture defying the normal laws humans are subject to. Consider Jonah, or Daniel's friends in the furnace. So, are you going to apply the same reasoning in those instances as well? Was Jonah God Incarnate? Did Jonah have a different kind of body?